Authors : A. Jerome, S.K. Singh, S.K. Agarwal, Mohini Saini and Ashwin Raut
Abstract: Pregnancy Associated Glycoproteins are trophoblastic proteins belonging to the Aspartic proteinase family secreted by different mammalian species. They play a pivotal role in placentogenesis, foeto-maternal unit remodeling and implantation. The identification of the genes encoding those proteins will be helpful to unravel the intricate embryogenomic functions during pregnancy establishment. Considering importance of these proteins, the present study was undertaken to characterize the pregnancy associated glycoprotein-1 gene of buffalo. An 1181 base pairs buffalo Pregnancy Associated Glycoprotein PAG- 1 gene was PCR amplified from the RNA obtained from the fetal cotyledons. BLAST analysis of the buffalo PAG- 1 sequence retrieved a total of 94 sequences which includes 35 cattle, 5 goat and 4 sheep PAG sequences, exhibiting more than 80% similarity. In silico analysis of buffalo PAG-1 gene revealed an uninterrupted open reading frame of 1140 base pairs encoding 380 amino acids possessing 15 amino acid signal peptide and mature peptide of 365 amino acids which is proteolytically inactive due to key mutations. The potential sites for glycosylation were also deduced. The phylogenetic study of the buffalo PAG-1 gene revealed buffalo PAG-1 is more related to cattle, goat and sheep PAG-1 sequences. Characterization and phylogenetic analysis of buffalo PAG-1 gene revealed many conserved regions and its proteolytic inactivity.
A. Jerome, S.K. Singh, S.K. Agarwal, Mohini Saini and Ashwin Raut, 2010. Characterization and in silico Analysis of Pregnancy Associated Glycoprotein-1 Gene of Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis). Journal of Molecular Genetics, 2: 24-31.